00:00:56.31 Stan Lemon Jonathan, is it too early to say Merry Christmas?
00:01:00.34 Jon um i don't believe so but it kind of depends on when we air this episode right ah
00:01:05.91 Stan Lemon Well, i'm I'm hoping I'm going to drop it tomorrow, so we'll see. Which is still not Christmas, right?
00:01:10.10 Jon not christmas
00:01:10.31 Stan Lemon it's It's like the second last day of Advent or the eve of Christmas Eve.
00:01:15.16 Jon christmas eve eve
00:01:18.04 Stan Lemon It sounded better the way I said the eve of Christmas Eve. Anyhow, that brings us to December 22nd on the Wall Street Journal Advent wine calendar. We're going have to figure out how we're going to taste and ah talk about wine here in future episodes without the the Advent calendar.
00:01:35.93 Jon We don't have the same kit.
00:01:37.24 Stan Lemon Yeah. right. So this is a French wine. This Le Champs d'Etoilesse. I think I said that right. Le Champs d'Etoilesse.
00:01:47.64 Jon just Just commit, Stan. If you say it confidently, nobody's going question you, except maybe your oldest.
00:01:49.53 Stan Lemon Yeah, there we go.
00:01:53.16 Stan Lemon That's how I pronounce Hebrew names in Sunday school, confidently, boldly. Okay, so apparently, assuming I said it right, this is French for the field of stars, and it is a Pinot Noir. So I'm going to open this, um and we'll get ready to pour here.
00:02:10.23 Stan Lemon My lighting's a little dim. I'm going to have trust your judgment on the the coloring. It looks red, very deep red.
00:02:18.72 Jon Coming out of the bottle, it didn't look that ah that deep color intensity, but in the glass so far.
00:02:19.21 Stan Lemon Ooh.
00:02:26.29 Stan Lemon Well, I wouldn't say it's intense. Like I can actually see through the bottom of the glass in my not well lit room with my cherry desk beneath it. But um yeah, i don't I wouldn't say that's super intense color wise, but it's it's just a very lovely red.
00:02:41.44 Stan Lemon Very lovely red.
00:02:42.88 Jon Indeed it is.
00:02:44.01 Stan Lemon Now, John, i'm I'm getting over being sick, so I'm not sure what my nose will tell us today.
00:02:49.92 Jon I think I get yup red fruit, and I think there is some yeasty vibes off the nose as well.
00:02:50.40 Stan Lemon Definitely red fruit.
00:02:57.54 Stan Lemon Yeah, I could get a sense that, like a little bit of bread for for the listener. And when we say yeast, I think it's usually like a bready sensation that we're getting off the nose.
00:03:03.36 Jon Yeah.
00:03:05.28 Stan Lemon So
00:03:05.79 Jon um I think the other thing is this is very characteristically a Pinot Noir. It's got that ah kind of funky smell to it.
00:03:15.30 Stan Lemon Yeah. I i feel like we discussed this. Didn't we just discuss this on on a previous episode about Pinot Noirs and the and the funk?
00:03:22.56 Jon It could be.
00:03:23.74 Stan Lemon what What did we conclude? how do you How would you describe the funk to lay person?
00:03:27.80 Jon don't know, but it it is a the sign of ah Pinot Noir. like That's what the grape smells like. It's kind of, and don't even know how to
00:03:38.45 Jon I don't even know how to describe it other than that.
00:03:41.00 Stan Lemon Funky. Okay. Well,
00:03:42.11 Jon So go buy yourself a bottle of Pinot Noir.
00:03:45.12 Stan Lemon A good bottle from France.
00:03:47.23 Jon There you go. Smell it. And like that's been an hour. You can buy a cab, put it next to it, and though you'll understand what I'm talking about.
00:03:57.79 Stan Lemon Do you? Okay. I mean, we've had some bizarre cabs as of recent, so I'm not sure that I i actually agree with you. Some earth-defying Pinot Noirs, some wine-defying Pinot Noirs.
00:04:09.18 Stan Lemon All right, you ready to taste this thing? All right.
00:04:11.34 Jon Sure. Always.
00:04:14.68 Stan Lemon Well, that's that's ah quite a bit more alcoholy. And I actually get more of the funk in the taste than I do in the smell.
00:04:21.15 Jon That is delicious. um
00:04:24.18 Stan Lemon It's pretty high in tannins too, isn't it?
00:04:25.31 Jon Very high in tannin.
00:04:27.96 Stan Lemon Yeah, so this is fascinating. So I would actually say the color intensity is, I'm going to go with pale to be honest with you. um ah High in tannin. What are you making of the acidity on this one?
00:04:40.55 Jon It was kind of hard to say because of how um
00:04:44.71 Stan Lemon High the tannins are.
00:04:45.73 Jon how in your face the tannins are.
00:04:47.100 Stan Lemon Yeah. On the mid-tongue, I get a very high alcohol content as well.
00:04:56.07 Stan Lemon you pick that up?
00:04:56.05 Jon Yeah, it's got kind of like that heat to it.
00:04:56.91 Stan Lemon Yeah.
00:05:01.03 Stan Lemon Yeah. This is fascinating. So, um definitely red. It's pretty oaky, isn't it?
00:05:10.29 Jon Yep.
00:05:11.14 Stan Lemon like a
00:05:11.89 Jon Oki, I think it's like a blueberry or blackberry going on there.
00:05:12.11 Stan Lemon like a smoky o oakiness.
00:05:18.55 Stan Lemon All right, I could get behind Blackberry. Yeah, this is actually a rather complex wine. um
00:05:26.01 Jon I'm going to try to not drink the whole thing and see what happens as it gets exposed to air.
00:05:30.51 Stan Lemon Yeah, that's ah that's always the big question, right? Like what does 30 minutes of time change this? I don't know, John, i I rather like this and I was not expecting to like it as much as I have. um It's a rather simple bottle, you know, it's it's very misleading.
00:05:50.23 Jon I mean, I think like a lot of the established vineyards in France probably have very simple bottles. I guess you got kind of the old world bottle too, that this is not, this is literally just decorative font.
00:06:04.63 Stan Lemon This is a single font on a white background. And the the most effort they went to was to put some lines on either side of the words Pinot Noir.
00:06:07.36 Jon Yep.
00:06:12.78 Jon Yep.
00:06:12.92 Stan Lemon um It's a beautiful script. It's just, I think, um not to be too like philosophical here, but I believe Mark Hottie, the winemaker, it just wants the wine to speak for itself.
00:06:26.38 Jon Ooh, I'm reading the notes that are on the back of the wine now.
00:06:31.83 Stan Lemon Go ahead, John. Say it loud here.
00:06:32.78 Jon So a deep black cherry color. i get it, but I wouldn't call it deep necessarily.
00:06:38.96 Stan Lemon ah If I were, so I think of, when I think of a deep black cherry color, don't, this is what comes to mind. I'm not saying this is right, but Luxardo's like that, that deep red.
00:06:47.77 Jon Charm.
00:06:48.56 Stan Lemon Yeah. Okay. And that's not Lux, this is not Luxardo's. All
00:06:52.21 Jon Um, and intense floral black fruit aromas, which we got, I basically said that initially. Uh,
00:07:02.34 Stan Lemon right. I didn't, you didn't say floral. I don't remember floral.
00:07:04.98 Jon I mean, right.
00:07:05.08 Stan Lemon Black fruit. Yes.
00:07:08.03 Jon complex palate, possesses classic cherry and blackberry fruits, I think I agree with that.
00:07:13.75 Stan Lemon Nailed it.
00:07:14.63 Jon Interlaced with supple tannins in a complex weave of flavors.
00:07:18.52 Stan Lemon I don't think there's any supple, anything supple about those tannins.
00:07:20.24 Jon ah They're very much in your face right now. I wonder if it will balance out with time.
00:07:22.68 Stan Lemon Yeah.
00:07:24.04 Jon But I would categorize it as a complex weave of flavors. Yeah.
00:07:28.67 Stan Lemon There's a lot going on. Good mouthfeel too.
00:07:32.21 Jon Rich with flavored, yet gracefully structured. Fine example of Pinot Noir, my favorite red grape variety. And should be savored with roast chicken and your best game dishes.
00:07:42.80 Stan Lemon Ooh, game dishes. Did you have game tonight, John?
00:07:45.46 Jon I did not. I had no ah meat at all.
00:07:49.97 Stan Lemon Well, I had Chilean sea bass, so.
00:07:52.61 Jon So not exactly the vibe we're going for.
00:07:55.09 Stan Lemon No, no, no, but it's okay because I already ate. so Well, you know, ah this is not bad. So tomorrow night we will have Stones and Bones, which I believe you've had before, right?
00:08:05.45 Jon Yes.
00:08:06.23 Stan Lemon Okay. And then the final evening ends with, I believe, a champagne, a Brut, right? That's Christmas Eve.
00:08:13.15 Jon I believe so.
00:08:14.16 Stan Lemon Yeah. We'll have to figure out...
00:08:14.87 Jon You had to open up all of your doors. i have not yet.
00:08:18.16 Stan Lemon I did because i didn't want to, but what happened was that one mix-up threw me for a loop.
00:08:18.71 Jon so
00:08:24.56 Stan Lemon but so I'm sorry. I said champagne. It is Prosecco. It is ah Sipion Jilani Prosecco.
00:08:28.30 Jon Oh, interesting.
00:08:31.63 Stan Lemon Okay.
00:08:31.83 Jon The only sparkling of the wine advent calendar.
00:08:35.83 Stan Lemon Yeah, I'm actually fascinated to see how the cork for that one is on.
00:08:40.32 Jon Did we have one rosé or two rosés?
00:08:42.36 Stan Lemon I just remember the one rosé.
00:08:44.15 Jon Okay.
00:08:44.95 Stan Lemon Because we we threw a bit of shade at the rosé, right? Because I i mean like i don't know. there's There's a sophistication that I would say is not usually associated with rosé that belonged to most of the other wines in this Advent wine calendar. But that rosé was spectacular.
00:08:59.89 Jon Yes.
00:09:01.11 Stan Lemon So I think actually...
00:09:02.10 Jon I mean, spectacular in a different way than this Pinot Noir is spectacular.
00:09:05.04 Stan Lemon In a different way. Yeah.
00:09:07.34 Jon so
00:09:07.70 Stan Lemon Yeah. Well, it's, there was a lot of interesting depth.
00:09:08.37 Jon ah
00:09:11.65 Stan Lemon There was a lot of interesting profile. um it we We ended up, we talked a lot about it, which I think neither of us expected. And I'm, I'm just going to throw some shade where shade is due. Star Trek wines last year with their jalapeno rose definitely set us up for, for skepticism, I think.
00:09:27.06 Jon Yes, for sure.
00:09:28.02 Stan Lemon Yeah. But no, this is, this is good.
00:09:29.01 Jon um Which is probably shown as they still try to market the this year's advent calendar in my email inbox as we are closing in on Christmas.
00:09:37.24 Stan Lemon Yeah. The last one they sent was just the other day, which means that they're sitting on a, you know, truckload of poorly designed Advent wine calendars. I'll tell you what, uh, as far as this one goes, it has exceeded all of my expectations in every way.
00:09:50.13 Jon Oh, yes. We've had very good wines that I would have probably not bought because it would would have been outside of my price range.
00:09:51.88 Stan Lemon Uh,
00:09:57.72 Jon So.
00:09:58.27 Stan Lemon A thousand percent, a thousand percent. Um, maybe not price but just like, I wouldn't have gravitated towards buying them. So, so suffice to say, uh, I would do this again in a heartbeat next year.
00:10:03.69 Jon Sure.
00:10:09.47 Stan Lemon So I will, I will pre-order again without reservation.
00:10:13.33 Jon Nice.
00:10:13.40 Stan Lemon um I don't know if anybody knows of a wine calendar out there that like will rival the wall street journal. love to know about it. I'm pretty committed at this point, but yeah. Yeah.
00:10:24.71 Jon We've had good experiences. Their overall web experience sometimes leaves things to be desired. But the product quality has been great.
00:10:35.16 Stan Lemon Yeah. I WSJ wine.com really not a great website by any measure and heaven help you if you need support. So um
00:10:44.66 Jon Which I have not had to try yet, so...
00:10:46.84 Stan Lemon twice, twice I've been frustrated both times, but you know, it is what is. I, you know, it I can't imagine that they're investing a lot in their their IT t unit for Wall Street Journal Wines.
00:10:58.90 Jon Right.
00:10:59.56 Stan Lemon So, you know, it is what it is.
00:11:00.44 Jon Yeah.
00:11:00.88 Stan Lemon about All right. ah Before we jump into the the main topic that you listed tonight, I wanted to say I sent you some podcast material. Did you by any chance listen to any of it?
00:11:11.38 Jon I listened to the majority of the one about aim
00:11:17.30 Stan Lemon Okay. I fell, I fell hard today for, versions by the verge. And, um, I listened to two episodes and one of them was on AIM, Able, and the Messenger, which I thought was spectacular. And then I listened to to one on the iPhone 4 with guest Neil Iy Patel, who I know you're not crazy about, but also Walt Mossberg.
00:11:39.64 Stan Lemon And it was delightful to hear Walt on the radio again. Anyhow, first and foremost, I would just say, like go check out this podcast because i think it was worth it. But I had to laugh at everything they talked about with AIM because it all resonated.
00:11:52.64 Stan Lemon And my first thought my first thought was
00:11:53.08 Jon Yes, all of it.
00:11:56.16 Stan Lemon Johnny, what was your handle? What was your first handle on AOL Instant Messenger? Do you remember?
00:12:00.28 Jon So I was trying to think because it it started on AOL.
00:12:00.55 Stan Lemon Yeah.
00:12:04.56 Jon um And I don't know if I remember my first one, but I think it was something like Trekker 1701.
00:12:11.70 Stan Lemon Oh, look at that. That would be amazing if you actually had that. That would mean you were very early in the game.
00:12:16.72 Jon Because i remember this because as I approached entering high school, I thought, I don't want to be the Star Trek nerd, at which point I changed it to ML Spartan John, um ML being Martin Luther, the name of my high school Spartan being the mascot.
00:12:33.59 Jon So not as inventive.
00:12:33.97 Stan Lemon Okay. So not as, not as invent and as eventful, you know, uh, my journey gets less eventful with time as well. So I, uh, started off with Tetro T E T R O four.
00:12:46.96 Stan Lemon Um, I do not know where I came up with that name. I know the original draft was Tetra and my dad was concerned that it would be perceived as a feminine name. Um, since most romantic languages,
00:12:59.22 Stan Lemon you know A is is feminine. And so he convinced me to go Tetro, Tetro four, and that was it for a very long time. And then I pivoted to insider with a Y, Homie, H-O-M-I-E, L-C, because I was the insider homie who loves Christ.
00:13:15.48 Stan Lemon And ah I don't even remember. i don't i don't I genuinely don't remember the sequence of events that led to that choice. um At some point, I shortened it to Insider, I-N-S-Y-D-E-R 07, because I was originally going to graduate from college in 07. So I suspect that I made that and that name choice very early on and my last year of high school.
00:13:42.07 Stan Lemon um And then from there, Jonathan, i did a hard pivot to Stosh, S-T-O-S-H, 1985. And then, and I'm going to say this one on the air, but I'll just say that ah the the podcast doesn't cover any this, but Apple at one point was allowed to have their.Mac addresses, right?
00:14:04.42 Jon Yep.
00:14:04.68 Stan Lemon So you could do a name at Mac.com, appear as your AL Instant Messenger account. And so I did a name that still follows me to this day, at mac.com. Cause I was so proud.
00:14:14.46 Jon Yep.
00:14:16.34 Stan Lemon Cause you had to pay a hundred bucks a year to have that at mac.com address and I was doing it. So um yeah, that was my old messenger journey, but I, there
00:14:24.66 Jon so I had one more after the... So once I got to high school and realized I didn't have a lot of school spirit, at some point I i pivoted to Dunklergeist 07, which means dark spirit in German, because I wanted to be mysterious and moody probably.
00:14:43.98 Jon so But we...
00:14:44.60 Stan Lemon And and that that is the one that you messaged me from during our yes yes during our first internet engagement.
00:14:45.16 Jon Oh, is that the first one? Yeah.
00:14:52.76 Stan Lemon So eventually tracked me down.
00:14:52.82 Jon I emailed you first, but yes, throughout the cyber stalking years. Yeah.
00:14:57.49 Stan Lemon Yeah. ah It's funny to think about um all of the different social dynamics that that revolved around AOL and so much. I really encourage anybody to listen to the episode because it was fun, but I also am not sure that anyone will care if they were not a child of the nineties with the internet.
00:15:15.79 Stan Lemon I could be wrong.
00:15:15.90 Jon Right.
00:15:17.07 Stan Lemon I could be wrong, but um yeah, no, I don't know. if If it was a good nostalgic throwback.
00:15:22.84 Jon It was like, it's amazing how similar everyone's experiences was. um Like basically trying to attract your crush's attention.
00:15:33.78 Stan Lemon Yeah. right
00:15:35.48 Jon Coming up with the away messages.
00:15:35.70 Stan Lemon All with lyrics.
00:15:37.00 Jon And yeah.
00:15:37.24 Stan Lemon all with All with lyrics in your way messages. Yes. i I really appreciate it. one point, they referenced Dashboard Confessional. And I was like, yes, definitely.
00:15:43.96 Jon Yep. They got something corporate in there too.
00:15:46.90 Stan Lemon Yeah, yeah.
00:15:46.98 Jon yeah. ah
00:15:48.40 Stan Lemon ah definitely I definitely bought at least one Dashboard Confessional album for that purpose. Yeah.
00:15:56.11 Jon But yeah, those were the days, Stan. ah Some other great things, like this is from a time when you had to go to the internet. The internet didn't follow you around everywhere.
00:16:05.80 Stan Lemon Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:06.63 Jon So they like they had the whole AFK thing and POS and... ah
00:16:11.72 Stan Lemon Right. Yeah. All parents over shoulders, man. I remember that. Um, I, I did appreciate the fact that, and I didn't, I didn't recall this, but if, if if I understood what they're articulating, right. If you didn't, if you weren't online, you couldn't send the message to the person.
00:16:25.21 Jon Right.
00:16:25.51 Stan Lemon And and that's that's brilliant, right? Like, i really, they were talking about how nice that would be to have now. And no kidding, right? Like, the fact that when I get off of a cruise ship, I turn my phone on and I've got everything that I missed, it stinks every single freaking time, you know?
00:16:43.43 Jon ah Those were the days. Maybe. Maybe I'm just being nostalgic.
00:16:47.78 Stan Lemon Maybe. I mean, I think there's, there were definitely simpler times, right? Yeah.
00:16:53.06 Jon Do you remember the first person you ever instant messaged?
00:16:58.89 Stan Lemon of I remember who they were. I remember where I met them. I never met them in person. How's that for weird?
00:17:08.85 Stan Lemon All right.
00:17:09.29 Jon That's a little bit weird.
00:17:10.88 Stan Lemon Well, so the the episode talks a little bit about um AOL and the channels and the amount of like money and time they invested into channels, right? and I spent a lot of time on the the kids only, kids for check, kids only, something kids or whatever the network was.
00:17:26.37 Jon I think it was kids only. Yeah.
00:17:27.91 Stan Lemon And um there were these chat rooms that had adult moderators ah and you could you know talk to whoever, right?
00:17:36.37 Jon Yep.
00:17:36.62 Stan Lemon And eventually you could instant message an individual. And I remember you would you know always identify like, I'm 12 year old boy in Illinois, right?
00:17:45.91 Jon Sure.
00:17:46.63 Stan Lemon And, um, the first person I ever heard direct messaged was a, uh, young lady, supposedly. I mean, who knows, right? Like could have been, could have been an 80 year old dude for all I know.
00:17:57.14 Stan Lemon Um, yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:17:57.41 Jon FBI agent.
00:17:59.30 Stan Lemon Right. But, uh, someone who I met on one of those kids only channels, that was the first person I ever messaged. Um, um,
00:18:04.62 Jon Interesting.
00:18:06.28 Stan Lemon the first person that I messaged in real life extensively would have been my buddy, Eric. So Eric lived just a couple blocks down the road.
00:18:11.94 Jon Mm-hmm.
00:18:14.79 Stan Lemon um And we, we had actually at one point we had a running, it wasn't really competition. Eric was smoking me on this ah to see who, who was online.
00:18:25.03 Stan Lemon Their online time on AOL was the longest, right? Did did you ever do this?
00:18:29.64 Jon Yes, for sure.
00:18:30.09 Stan Lemon Like, see how long it go.
00:18:31.37 Jon How can you?
00:18:31.53 Stan Lemon Yeah. All right.
00:18:32.62 Jon Yep. Online for the past. however
00:18:35.14 Stan Lemon Yeah, right. So he had, I mean, he had something like 40 some odd days at one point, which meant that you were like missing critical patches for Microsoft Windows, right?
00:18:43.06 Jon Right.
00:18:43.85 Stan Lemon um Because those came every Tuesday. And so he was opting out of out of those, plus any updates to AIM. Like there was bunch of stuff that was just not, you know, but he was he was king of the hill.
00:18:51.82 Jon And that means his computer didn't crash during that time either.
00:18:54.38 Stan Lemon Right.
00:18:54.42 Jon So.
00:18:54.74 Stan Lemon Which is also amazing. Right. And, um, you know, Eric and I were definitely the types who would, you know bomb our computer down to stupid and and reset everything up maybe every three to six months or something.
00:19:05.78 Stan Lemon So that was, that was basically like you would, you know, if AOL had to die, well, okay, it's time to reset the whole computer, you know?
00:19:05.92 Jon No.
00:19:11.94 Stan Lemon Um,
00:19:13.65 Jon That's great.
00:19:13.73 Stan Lemon And I'm not, I'm not even joking. Like I did, this is legit. You know, these, I'll never forget windows, windows ME, uh, one of the like least stable operating systems I have ever used in my life.
00:19:24.56 Stan Lemon And, and that sucker was at war with my aim online time, you know, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:19:31.23 Jon I remember it well. such bright a Such a bright color scheme as well.
00:19:33.33 Stan Lemon Good times, man. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So, okay. All right. So hold up. So who, who was the first person you messaged on ambulance messenger? do you remember?
00:19:43.18 Jon So we were on like actual AOL at the time and it would have been my paternal grandfather.
00:19:50.52 Stan Lemon Oh, that's cool.
00:19:51.62 Jon Yep.
00:19:51.90 Stan Lemon That's super cool.
00:19:53.48 Jon So I remember that very clearly. i remember some of like the topic categorization and stuff in AOL. um
00:20:01.80 Stan Lemon Yeah.
00:20:03.01 Jon But like there was a lot of stuff I had forgotten just listening to this episode.
00:20:07.43 Stan Lemon Yeah.
00:20:07.53 Jon Like.
00:20:08.83 Stan Lemon Oh man. You know, it's, it's kind of wild to like think back to the first instant message you got. Right. And how wild that is.
00:20:15.39 Jon Right. Yep.
00:20:16.42 Stan Lemon And now, you know text messaging is this instant messaging on steroids. Right. And it, it's such a pervasive, uh, pattern in our lives, Slack, Microsoft teams, whatever. Um,
00:20:29.64 Stan Lemon So i you know I thought that was one of the cool things about the episode was just kind of like articulating the impact, the imprint that this thing has had on technology and society and culture and our day-to-day. yeah.
00:20:41.67 Jon um What I really appreciated was I had no idea how rogue the instant messenger team was within AOL. um So I i got got a lot of ah humor out of that.
00:20:49.70 Stan Lemon oh Yeah.
00:20:54.57 Jon So.
00:20:55.01 Stan Lemon Yeah, yeah. So Skunk Works Project, they tried to kill it, dumped it on an FTP server of all things, and off to the races.
00:21:02.06 Jon Like just thinking about how far the internet has come to, like when you would just put things up on an FTP server.
00:21:02.87 Stan Lemon Yeah.
00:21:08.97 Jon Yeah.
00:21:09.35 Stan Lemon Yeah. Not even a secure FTP server, just FTP and you download it. You know, a public one, right? Not even authenticated.
00:21:14.67 Jon Nice.
00:21:15.18 Stan Lemon ah I remember, so so AOL 4.0 was like a of foundational pivot for the AOL platform. And I don't know how, but some some way my dad got us into the AOL beta test group.
00:21:30.86 Stan Lemon And so we were pulling down back like AOL 3.2 and then AOL 4.0 betas before anybody else had them. And there was also this thing called AOL Connect, which I don't think ever got released.
00:21:43.24 Stan Lemon But it was like, what if AOL just connected you to the internet and didn't have everything else, right?
00:21:48.10 Jon Yep.
00:21:49.16 Stan Lemon um And I remember downloading that off an FTP server, you know? Like we would get these emails with FTP links for the betas and, you know, take God knows how long to...
00:21:59.50 Jon Forever.
00:21:59.69 Stan Lemon download and install, but it was worth it, right? And if my kids happen to listen to this, I had exactly one hour of screen time after my homework was done and after dinner was complete to sit in the computer in the kitchen in front of everybody to use.
00:22:19.40 Stan Lemon And that was it. So no, but I don't remember doing any kind of talking on AOL.
00:22:20.55 Jon Did you have headphones or not?
00:22:26.50 Jon Right. Didn't do talking, but like you can hear the, they went through all the sounds from the original.
00:22:30.95 Stan Lemon Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:22:31.58 Jon mr translate
00:22:32.27 Stan Lemon Were any of those triggering? That closed door sound.
00:22:34.54 Jon A little bit. Yeah.
00:22:35.73 Stan Lemon That closed door sound. I was like, oh, my gosh.
00:22:37.58 Jon ah
00:22:37.80 Stan Lemon Who just signed off? you know um Yeah. i guess Yeah.
00:22:40.67 Jon That's the other thing, the buddy list, which we see pop up in all these sorts of things too. um
00:22:45.61 Stan Lemon Yeah. yeah yeah
00:22:46.82 Jon But yeah.
00:22:48.15 Stan Lemon Buddy list. that book Good times, man. Good times. They they even mentioned Trillium and Pigeon. um you know along the way, which that's some super nerdy stuff. So yeah, it's good stuff, good stuff.
00:23:00.33 Stan Lemon Anyhow, as I as i listened to this today, I thought you'd enjoy it. I think you will enjoy the iPhone 4 episode, so I would definitely commend that to you. I still think that the iPhone 4 is one of those ah pivotal moments in the transformation of digital culture.
00:23:15.37 Stan Lemon It's the one that Lucy, my daughter, my oldest daughter, waited in line for um because you couldn't order it online and you know and then have it delivered.
00:23:23.50 Jon Right.
00:23:24.77 Stan Lemon You had to go to a store, wait in line, and go pick it up. And those lines were crazy long, crazy long. I called off work. We waited all day. i think we got to the mall like 4 a.m.
00:23:35.18 Stan Lemon m or whatever. My wife and I, we both had to be present because we were getting two phones. And Lucy even got nursed in line at the mall. Cause she was that little, this is all kinds of crazy, but I love that phone, deep lemon Lord, deep lemon Lord.
00:23:45.65 Jon This is deep lemon lore. Mm-hmm.
00:23:48.46 Stan Lemon But I think that phone, ah is the moment where everything changes in how we look at our phone. And they talk a little bit about this, right? Um, and there's other like important milestones to the phone, but the fact that the four comes out with the retina screen, it's got this shape that we still recognize today, right?
00:24:07.62 Stan Lemon yeah All, all phones are modeled to look after the iPhone four and they make this point. Um, It's also when you know Apple begins the journey to expand and networks. So this is some good stuff, some good lore, some good tech lore.
00:24:18.43 Jon Right.
00:24:21.70 Jon I think the 4 was my first iPhone.
00:24:24.52 Stan Lemon I think the 4 was a lot of people's first iPhone. I had the original and I had the 3GS. And the 3GS was a huge leap in terms of speed. At least ah it felt like it compared to the original.
00:24:35.97 Stan Lemon But the 4 was just, it was a it was the first time I felt like I had a supercomputer in my hand.
00:24:36.46 Jon Yep.
00:24:41.04 Jon Yep. Man.
00:24:44.13 Stan Lemon right, John.
00:24:44.71 Jon Now we're just dating ourselves, Stan.
00:24:46.18 Stan Lemon we We are, we are, yeah.
00:24:46.54 Jon We're old.
00:24:47.59 Stan Lemon That's all right. Yeah, we're not old, we're classic. That's what the kids say today, we're classic.
00:24:51.50 Jon Classic. Sure. Retro.
00:24:52.96 Stan Lemon All right, what's the topic for tonight?
00:24:55.37 Jon um So we talked about my goals for 2026. Are we going to get any lemon goals for 2026? Yep. Yep.
00:25:01.93 Stan Lemon Yeah, we you know, it's funny, um you threw me for a little bit of a loop. So when we talked about um your goals, I asked you about like just repeating my goals from previous years. right You remember that discussion?
00:25:15.30 Stan Lemon yeah If we had an editor, they would they would play that clip right now and they'd be like, oh, right? But we don't.
00:25:19.98 Jon One day the robots will get there.
00:25:20.14 Stan Lemon So, yeah. what One day the robots will do it. Yep. So that, like I said, threw me for a loop a little bit, right? And I actually took, and you made a distinction of habits and hobbies.
00:25:31.77 Stan Lemon i don't know if you did this on purpose, but, and you actually challenged me to believe that um I would not stop doing my hobbies or my habits if I didn't write them down as a goal, right?
00:25:45.25 Jon Correct.
00:25:46.06 Stan Lemon and And I'm not sure I believe you, okay?
00:25:48.87 Jon Time will tell.
00:25:49.42 Stan Lemon Uh, what's that?
00:25:50.98 Jon Time will tell.
00:25:51.37 Stan Lemon Time will tell. Yeah. Time will tell. But, but I decided that for 2026, I was going to write down my habits, my hobbies and my goals separately. Right? So the hobbies, pretty simple reading, playing guitar, coding, right? Three things that do pretty regularly.
00:26:07.49 Stan Lemon Debatably here, I'm going to put in cycling. i' I'm on the fence about this. We'll talk about it here in a minute. um habits, exercising, and doing devotions with my family every night. right all All five of these things started off as discrete goals for me in years past. you know I wanted to read every day. I wanted to practice the guitar excuse me practice the guitar at least every other day. I wanted to do some non-work-oriented coding at some kind of regular interval. and you know, we should talk about measurability, but I do that now.
00:26:38.44 Stan Lemon Like that's, I've got my hobby projects for, for coding. I'm i'm pretty consistent playing the guitar. I'm actually, I'm getting pretty good at silent night, John. Um, and reading is pretty intrinsic into my world.
00:26:45.39 Jon Nice.
00:26:48.82 Stan Lemon So, you know, those, those are the hobbies habits, um, devotions with family. i don't even remember when I first listed that down, but, uh, I actually used to track that on the streaks app to make sure that I was doing it.
00:26:58.98 Stan Lemon Now it's ingrained into the day. So, uh, if I don't remember to do it, someone's to call me on it. Right. So I feel like that's a good habit. Uh, exercising right now.
00:27:10.24 Stan Lemon Um, like I think that's pretty well and entrenched. I've been pretty deliberate about that for for about two and a half years now. So I feel pretty good.
00:27:16.23 Jon some might say obsessive at points in your life.
00:27:18.95 Stan Lemon Maybe, but you know, Hey,
00:27:20.55 Jon ah You aren't doing CrossFit yet, so.
00:27:24.74 Stan Lemon no, that's a religion. I don't, I'm not going there.
00:27:26.28 Jon ah
00:27:27.58 Stan Lemon I'm not going there. But but so i I listed those things and um that allowed me to, because remember were talking about like how many goals is too many, right?
00:27:35.95 Jon Yep.
00:27:36.90 Stan Lemon and Did you have a magic number? What was like? Three, five, eight, 32?
00:27:40.07 Jon I don't think I gave up one. I think mine are probably, I probably have too many for next year, but.
00:27:44.30 Stan Lemon Okay. I know that if I make more than eight, it's it's a list I'm not going to hit. So last year, to the way I got around this is I made five with some sub bullets.
00:27:50.37 Jon OK.
00:27:55.18 Stan Lemon Right. But a couple of them were things that honestly, I didn't, I mean, didn't need to be in there. So read every day. Yeah, that's, it was already a habit that I wasn't at risk of doing that, but I specifically wrote down, read Moby Dick and read Lord of the Rings slowly. Right. So I felt like, you know, those are my sub bullets that works.
00:28:10.47 Stan Lemon Um, exercise. I gave some, you know, prescription around it. Um, and, and I've hit, oddly enough, this is the first year I've hit everything. I've managed to knock everything off that I wrote down last year.
00:28:22.38 Stan Lemon Uh, usually I leave something behind.
00:28:22.51 Jon Nice. I think last year mine was survive.
00:28:24.73 Stan Lemon Um,
00:28:27.15 Stan Lemon You're supposed survive.
00:28:28.10 Jon Yeah.
00:28:28.34 Stan Lemon right. Well, you know, ay yet look at good so far.
00:28:29.06 Jon yeah It's looking good so far, Stan.
00:28:33.18 Stan Lemon Yeah, look at good so So here I am, habits, hobbies. I've got this question about cycling. So the last two years, I want to get back into cycling. Two years ago, set a goal for 500 miles, decided just to repeat the goal in 2025 for 500 miles.
00:28:49.26 Stan Lemon um I had a non-explicit goal that I actually set in the course of the season to ride a 50-mile ride. um And that was miserable. I actually actually came up just short. I think it was 49.6 or something like that.
00:29:02.73 Stan Lemon um And that ride there i was like truly unpleasant.
00:29:07.24 Jon Within the margin of error.
00:29:08.65 Stan Lemon Within the margin of error, like I wasn't gonna, I knew I wasn't gonna go do it again.
00:29:11.03 Jon Interesting. Okay.
00:29:12.50 Stan Lemon So I've been thinking about this and um I struggle to ride by myself these days, to ride by myself and enjoy it.
00:29:21.22 Jon interesting
00:29:22.72 Stan Lemon Yeah. Uh, and so there might be a goal there, right? To try to learn how to ride 25 miles by myself again and enjoy it. So I don't know. I I'm, I'm on the fence about that. That's, that's, so that's what I'm considering. Um, Noah, if you're listening to this, I still want to ride it with you. That's not, it's not about you.
00:29:42.74 Stan Lemon I'm still expecting to ride with you, buddy. We did, we rode 13 times together and I'd like to make it 15. So there we go. Maybe there's a goal, ride 15 times with Noah.
00:29:49.35 Jon i not
00:29:50.50 Stan Lemon Okay.
00:29:50.70 Jon Ride once with John.
00:29:50.74 Stan Lemon Okay. Ride once a job. That would be good. That'd be good. That'd be good. um Okay. So I've got a couple of things that I'm committed to, to actually, to be specific.
00:30:02.57 Stan Lemon I got one I'm on the fence about and then one that we'll spend the next 30 minutes talking about. All right.
00:30:07.46 Jon All right.
00:30:08.49 Stan Lemon Any feedback on this bicycle riding one what do you think?
00:30:11.37 Jon um I think that you do need a bicycle riding goal because we're going to hit like May or something and you need something to motivate you to get out there the first time.
00:30:20.81 Stan Lemon they're you're you're not wrong. Like getting the bike out the first time is absolutely the hardest.
00:30:24.60 Jon It's hard.
00:30:25.53 Stan Lemon Yeah. um But when you do it, like it's, ah I like this.
00:30:29.16 Jon Like, oh yeah, I like this. but
00:30:31.59 Stan Lemon I like this a lot and it's worth doing. um And then, you know, figuring out like where I'm going to ride like the strategy of it all. Like, in and some of that's fun, some of it's not, but I think that first ride is absolutely the hardest. So i'm I'm with you there. Are you going to, are you going to a goal? Like you, maybe, maybe you should have a goal for a mile count next year.
00:30:48.49 Jon Maybe I should, but right now i am pretty darn overcommitted. So we'll see what the final list ends up like.
00:30:52.78 Stan Lemon Okay. Um, I've struggled. I'll tell you this too. I've struggled with some goals where the start date is in January 1st. I actually think it's better when the start date is not January 1st, but like, like bicycle riding, I'm not going start riding my bike in January.
00:31:06.10 Stan Lemon That's crazy. But you know, you got to remember then to start it.
00:31:07.55 Jon Yep.
00:31:09.62 Stan Lemon Right. So it makes us this whole goal thing more than just the month of January, which is, which is good. It's important. All right. Um, so goal number one, Let me see if, so dear listener, i can see John. John can see me. it's It's part of the way that John knows how to read my mannerisms, I think. do You see whats what's written on this book, John, in front of you?
00:31:31.69 Jon Grateful.
00:31:32.74 Stan Lemon Grateful, yeah. So this is ah this is a a gratitude journal, is what I've been told. um
00:31:38.91 Jon It's interesting that this is like an actual book, physical.
00:31:38.95 Stan Lemon This is...
00:31:42.02 Stan Lemon it's an actual It's an actual book, yes.
00:31:42.17 Jon Ooh.
00:31:43.66 Stan Lemon ah this This is Mrs. Lemon's idea. And yes, I did consider doing this digitally, but I actually told her that I would like her to find me a non-cheesy gratitude journal.
00:31:55.40 Stan Lemon um This has, it looks like 54 entries. So it's not gonna, I don't think this is an everyday thing. I gotta ask Mrs.
00:32:02.56 Jon 54 sounds like basically one a week, right?
00:32:02.63 Stan Lemon Lemon. Once a week. Yeah. yeah um There's these weekly challenges. there's a whole bunch of stuff in this, but the general gist is I write down, i am grateful for one, two, three, today was dot, dot, dot. And I'm amazed by dot, dot. dot And I looked into this. There's a whole bunch of like different kind of prompts in the gratitude journal space.
00:32:25.45 Jon Interesting.
00:32:25.54 Stan Lemon This is, this is not something um that I am inclined to do.
00:32:32.07 Jon Right.
00:32:33.41 Stan Lemon Uh, this is Mrs. Lemon's idea because i have, and this is going to come into the big, the one that's going to us forever to talk about here. Um, sometimes I struggle to be grateful for all of the good gifts the Lord gives me in my day to day, because I get so discouraged by the frustrations, the negativity, the the pressures of the world, right? Right.
00:32:55.13 Jon Basically, Stan is easily annoyed.
00:32:57.59 Stan Lemon I'm i'm ah easily annoyed. I'm frustrated. And I feel like when the world compounds problems on me, it is so stinking hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Right.
00:33:08.65 Stan Lemon um And, you know, maybe it's maybe it's being at this season of life. Maybe it's having three kids. Maybe it's been this season of my career. Maybe it's, you know, having joints that that creek when I get up out of the chair, whatever it is.
00:33:21.58 Stan Lemon um Things don't go wrong one at a time. They go wrong in bulk. Right. And it's just so easy to get kind of in a dark place. So Mrs. Lemon has challenged me to write in a gratitude journal.
00:33:36.33 Stan Lemon And I think I'm going do it John. I think I'm gonna try and do a gratitude journal. what do you think of that?
00:33:44.10 Jon I think it's worth a shot.
00:33:46.63 Stan Lemon Oh, come on. You got more than that.
00:33:49.28 Jon i'm I'm very interested if you're going to be willing to share on podcast episodes about things you're grateful for, Stan.
00:33:56.14 Stan Lemon You know what?
00:33:56.13 Jon Yeah. ah
00:34:01.32 Stan Lemon that That's, ah I'm not sure, John.
00:34:06.89 Jon ah Yeah. So I'd be interested in to see how it goes I think that it's probably a good thing for you to try.
00:34:09.46 Stan Lemon right, that's the first one, right?
00:34:14.73 Stan Lemon for me to try. All right. So I'm gonna try and write in a gratitude journal. Um, the second one is, I think I've told you, i started running, um not a lot, not fast, but at least once a week for now, I think two, three months, something like that.
00:34:32.71 Stan Lemon Um,
00:34:32.74 Jon Was this just so that you could calculate your VO2 max?
00:34:36.58 Stan Lemon No, no, I have my VO2 max calculated in in Apple Trends, but you're you're hitting the nail on the head.
00:34:38.92 Jon OK.
00:34:41.46 Stan Lemon So in Apple Fitness, there's a set of trends that show up for you, and one of them is a running pace. It is the only trend for which I do not have data.
00:34:48.48 Jon Ah.
00:34:52.07 Stan Lemon And it annoys me to the point that I have taken up running, apparently, which is absurd, because Uh, this says that you need at least six months of data, right?
00:35:03.70 Jon Oof.
00:35:03.88 Stan Lemon In, yeah. In order to establish a trend. So I am committed in 2026 to establishing a running trend in Apple fitness. I'm not looking to establish a trend for myself or my life or my longevity. I just want the trend to show up in Apple fitness.
00:35:22.98 Stan Lemon And so whenever,
00:35:23.08 Jon we did We did touch on this. Was this our first episode back where ah AI basically it was giving you running shoes for seniors' recommendations?
00:35:33.90 Stan Lemon Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was trash talking about, yeah.
00:35:34.67 Jon Yeah.
00:35:35.90 Stan Lemon My, yeah. in in In AI's defense, i'm you know I misled it. But um yes, that good memory, John. Good memory. So you know in order to do this, I just need to run. I don't need to, because I was trying to think like, yeah I hit an 801 mile last week. Today, after being sick with a chest infection, I went to run and I jogged two miles at a 13 minute pace. So ah you know I'm not sure that i care about the time.
00:36:06.37 Stan Lemon It's always a little you know joyful for me to throw shade at my daughter if I were able to beat her time, though I don't think that's ever gonna happen again. um
00:36:13.48 Jon I think that she is still moving up to her peak.
00:36:16.84 Stan Lemon Yeah, yeah, I think so too.
00:36:17.28 Jon You are well past yours. oh
00:36:19.34 Stan Lemon Yeah, yeah.
00:36:20.33 Jon ah
00:36:21.54 Stan Lemon But I felt pretty good about that AO1, John. I mean, come on now, you know?
00:36:23.69 Jon Yes, that was good.
00:36:25.29 Stan Lemon Uh, I thought about like, maybe I should set, set it at seven 15.
00:36:26.36 Jon Don't hurt yourself, Stan.
00:36:28.40 Stan Lemon Well, that's the other thing is I don't want, I don't want, I don't want to do that. Right. That probably will seven 15, I would be a cool goal, but I think, I i think I could probably, you know, I get, get healthy from this, this chest infection thing.
00:36:31.32 Jon Right.
00:36:37.60 Stan Lemon I could, I could probably nail that. Um, so you know, what's, do I want to run a certain number of miles? Not really. Cause I don't actually enjoy running. I am not a running person. Um, I'm not doing this for, you know, fun and giggles.
00:36:49.99 Stan Lemon Uh, so it's, it's the trend, right?
00:36:53.28 Stan Lemon How's that feel, John? Does that the feel on brand? I'm trying to get an Apple fitness data point.
00:36:58.18 Jon That definitely feels on brand. um When you do something, you never have to do something.
00:37:05.32 Stan Lemon and there we go. Now the question is, when the trend establishes, will I continue to run?
00:37:12.50 Jon I think your body will tell you that.
00:37:15.13 Stan Lemon Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. That's all I'm afraid of. um All right. So ah third thing on the list. This is the one that um I'm on the fence about.
00:37:26.84 Stan Lemon ah I used to make bread all the time. And I have not baked bread with any type of consistency really since moving to this house, believe it or not, which that's that's eight years.
00:37:29.86 Jon Mm-hmm.
00:37:37.34 Stan Lemon I've had a couple stints where I i baked um pretty regularly, but I haven't had a sourdough since we've lived here, which is crazy to me to think about. Because I had a sourdough for a good chunk of Seymour and made sourdough bread.
00:37:50.16 Stan Lemon I want i won a ribbon at the county fair with my sourdough, right?
00:37:54.61 Jon And this was before making sourdough was cool.
00:37:57.36 Stan Lemon Yeah, it was way before. Like this is way, way before everybody.
00:37:59.61 Jon This is pre-COVID, this is pre-Taylor Swift deciding she's gonna make sourdough.
00:38:01.01 Stan Lemon Yeah, all of it.
00:38:05.36 Jon All of it.
00:38:05.56 Stan Lemon Yeah, all of that, right? um Maybe I stopped doing it because it became trendy. I don't know. But i there's a part of me that thinks that I would like to make things bread, maybe even make sourdough again, but I want to make like a, like just a good crusty loaf once a week.
00:38:23.56 Jon Yep. Right.
00:38:23.97 Stan Lemon i So I'm thinking about that as a, as a, ah um, goal.
00:38:24.32 Jon Yep.
00:38:28.38 Stan Lemon Now I will say this, I, I won't, if I take a week off on vacation and I don't make a loaf of bread, I'm not going to penalize myself on this goal. But I think the goal is to make bread with some kind of consistency next year.
00:38:40.37 Stan Lemon So that, that's something I'm dabbling with because that's, it's, it was a hobby in the past. I would not consider it a hobby now. Um, I'm not sure I want to make it a hobby, uh, like in perpetuity, but I like to get back into it. I think
00:38:53.56 Jon To be fair, you do make pizza dough every week.
00:38:56.47 Stan Lemon I do. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:57.72 Jon So.
00:38:57.75 Stan Lemon But you know, that's, um, yeah, like I'm not trying to, as part of the family culture.
00:39:01.32 Jon That's part of the family culture. um
00:39:04.21 Stan Lemon Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a habit at this point.
00:39:07.05 Jon Oh, yeah.
00:39:07.45 Stan Lemon Um, That's been a habit for a long time, a long time. So, you know, those are the those's the the two and the third that I'm on the fence about. um And then the big one here is the one I want to talk about. So I sent you a text message today.
00:39:24.18 Stan Lemon i do you have it handy? You want to read it maybe?
00:39:28.63 Jon and uh let me find it you've sent me a whole bunch of things since then there we go now before the aim one now it's after how would i measure better work-life balance then you say don't tell me now you'll ask me tonight
00:39:32.69 Stan Lemon Oh, it keeps scrolling. It's before the AIM one. Oh, it's on?
00:39:41.01 Stan Lemon Oh, okay. All right.
00:39:48.62 Stan Lemon Yeah. Yeah. So here's the gist. Um, I would like to have a better work life balance, but I, I think most people make this into closing the laptop at a specific time.
00:40:01.64 Stan Lemon Right.
00:40:01.76 Jon Right.
00:40:02.77 Stan Lemon And
00:40:03.13 Jon Which is not really possible in your current role.
00:40:06.10 Stan Lemon It's so it is and it isn't there. There are times when it definitely isn't. Right. But I also don't think that's actually my biggest problem.
00:40:12.40 Jon Yep.
00:40:12.60 Stan Lemon So I think that especially like last summer, I had no problem wrapping up pretty consistently at the same time a day normal a load of hours. I think this has just been a really trying year in my career. And the stress of it bleeds out when the laptop is closed.
00:40:32.50 Jon Sure.
00:40:33.33 Stan Lemon And so um what I keep thinking about is not so much the calendar, because I think I'm managing the calendar okay. it's It's all of the effects of my job on my non-job life, right? So um it like I said, pretty rough year. Like by by all accounts, I would even dare say maybe one of the roughest years of my career, okay? Um, and, ah I have been more often than not frustrated in a dark place. You can see how this maybe ties back to the gratitude journal thing a little bit. Right.
00:41:07.67 Jon All right.
00:41:08.47 Stan Lemon Um, and I don't like, I don't think my, I it's unrealistic. It's unreasonable. In fact, for me to expect my job to be like awesome all the time. Right. Or to leave me, ah to have me leaving work every day, feeling fulfilled and satisfied and happy. And like, you know, I'm making wonderful change in the world. Like, I don't think that's realistic because I don't, I don't think most people feel that about their jobs. Right. I think, I think a lot of us, um, have been raised up to think about work in an idealistic way that is quite honestly irresponsible. Um, but also just sets of people for failure.
00:41:46.04 Stan Lemon does Does that make sense?
00:41:47.25 Jon Absolutely. um And I think you have really colored how I approach work too, because I think it was probably a decade ago, at least, where you talked about work was being a means to an end, um to give your family a good life, to support your church, things that you do that. um So I've kind of taken that to heart as well.
00:42:06.10 Stan Lemon and And that's not to say that you can't enjoy what you do or you can't feel satisfied or any of that. Right. Um, but I don't, I don't subscribe to the notion that I have to love my job because again, it it is a means to an end, right? Like I, um I need a check, I need income and I need to be able to provide for my family. and, and so things can quite frankly, they can suck and that's okay. Uh, it also, just to be clear, like having a ah job that isn't fun right now does not mean that I'm not, you know putting in my all or working hard. In fact, I've, I might be ah doing that and that um makes it even more difficult, right? Like there's, there's a certain element of like, if I could just check out, man, it'd be so much easier, but that's also not really my nature.
00:42:46.97 Stan Lemon And so, so, you know, again, where I've, where I've been at is I think I've managed the calendar. Well, I've been able to take vacation, i think ah pretty well. And when I take vacation, I log out, right?
00:42:57.18 Jon Yeah.
00:42:59.62 Stan Lemon So I'm disconnected from work. I've had some good reboot recalibrate times, right? And yet I don't feel like I have good work-life balance. So I am trying to figure out I measure improvement.
00:43:11.57 Jon of
00:43:14.73 Stan Lemon this area i have I have some ideas in terms of how I can improve it, but how how to measure it, I think, is the thing that I'm i'm not, I don't know, John. Like, yeah.
00:43:25.74 Jon So I'm curious if the issue is work-life balance or something else, right?
00:43:32.01 Stan Lemon what What were the,
00:43:32.09 Jon Because like work and life are always going to be out of balance because like you're all in on work when you're sitting in a meeting and then you're all in on family, hopefully when you're making pizza. Right.
00:43:42.96 Jon um So like there's a certain amount of that. You've basically said like it's not a time commitment thing for the most part. I think that you over the course of a year probably work less hours than I do because you take more vacations and things of that nature.
00:44:00.08 Stan Lemon Yeah, there you go.
00:44:03.63 Jon So.
00:44:03.69 Stan Lemon Hey, yeah if anyone that employs John is listening, please, please give the guy just a couple more federal holidays. That's all I'm asking. Right. I'd like to hang out with them more. Please call me. Write to me. I'm i'm happy to talk to you more about it. Me and the AI robots will persuade you that this is the right course of action for both your business, Jonathan, and quite frankly, myself.
00:44:23.94 Jon So I'm curious, like, is it the work life balance? Is it because work stress is spilling over? um So is it like a mental shift thing that you need to do or what?
00:44:38.21 Stan Lemon I think it's the latter. So I think it's, it's stress spilling out and frustration being on edge. Um, and so it's, it's fascinating to me that you don't categorize that as work-life balance. Cause I tend to think of work-life balance in terms of time stress, like being able to, don't want to say compartmentalize cause that's not healthy either, but like,
00:44:57.92 Stan Lemon maybe compartmentalize you know work from home so that when I step outside of my designated workspace here, um that I'm not still you know fuming or frustrated about the ah human encounters interactions that I've just had.
00:45:14.44 Stan Lemon you know ah And i don't i don't know how to I don't know how to disassociate in a way that's healthy.
00:45:15.58 Jon Right.
00:45:20.92 Stan Lemon Um, but that's probably part of the journey of the next year is to think about deliberately like leaving that stuff behind. um I probably told you this before, but, uh, I, I struggle with midweek church services a lot.
00:45:35.78 Stan Lemon And, um, I've had a former pastor and even a friend like asked me like, why, what's, what's wrong, you know, at a midweek service. Cause I roll out of work, hop in the car, drive straight to church and I'm in, I'm in service.
00:45:46.96 Jon Yep.
00:45:48.50 Stan Lemon Right. And I'm still like, all in mentally on what's been going at work. Right. And so it takes me a little bit to reset the clock. And I, I'm, you know, again, i have the ability to figure out techniques to reset the clock between work and whatever I'm going to do next. But i've I've always thought about this, this church example, because I'll be sitting in the pew and I'm like looking grumpy. And then after church,
00:46:15.68 Stan Lemon you know, people want to like socialize and talk to me like, like they would it on a Saturday night. And I'm just like, yeah go away, leave me alone. Right.
00:46:21.96 Jon Right.
00:46:22.42 Stan Lemon Um, because I haven't, I haven't had enough time to like free myself from the manacles of my day.
00:46:25.73 Jon Process. Right.
00:46:27.94 Stan Lemon Yeah. Um, so
00:46:31.30 Jon I think you just articulated the problem. um You need a clear demarcation point.
00:46:37.70 Stan Lemon I need a demarcation point. Yeah. And I need enough time to unwind from the demarcation point. I think, And in that in that time, whatever that window is, I got to figure out a way to like capture the thing um that has got me annoyed or frustrated so that I can set it aside. And I think I can figure that out.
00:46:56.50 Stan Lemon But the thing that I'm struggling is how do I know if I've succeeded in this goal? How do I track that I've succeeded in this goal? How do I measure it?
00:47:04.82 Jon I have an idea, but first I'm going to talk about as much as I hate my commute, I think this is one place where my commute serves me well. Um, even if it just transfers my frustration to the idiot drivers around me.
00:47:13.55 Stan Lemon Oh, a thousand percent.
00:47:17.86 Jon Um, and then I come home, I'm still angry. And then Anna is one who takes on other people's emotions. So like 30 minutes later, she's angry. I'm like, what's wrong? Um, because I have moved past it. So there's that, um, but how to measure,
00:47:31.98 Jon um
00:47:33.72 Jon I don't think you can do it yourself. I think you have to designate probably Sarah to basically at the end of the day, give you one of your, like how you rate the cruise line food, a thumbs up, thumbs down, or the mid end.
00:47:36.50 Stan Lemon Oh.
00:47:48.82 Stan Lemon how Oh, okay.
00:47:49.94 Jon And then when you can measure it over time that way.
00:47:50.62 Stan Lemon All right. There's a couple things we need to double click into there to explain, but um ah are you telling me I should go vibe code an app for my wife to use?
00:47:54.42 Jon but
00:48:01.64 Jon Oh, absolutely. I didn't think that because I'm not into that frame of mind yet, but yes.
00:48:06.42 Stan Lemon so So she could record how my day went, right?
00:48:09.72 Jon You can get a push notification at 11 o'clock at night.
00:48:09.94 Stan Lemon And I could i get a push notification.
00:48:13.10 Jon It's like, hey, great house, Dan.
00:48:13.34 Stan Lemon Perfectly. Your wife says, today sucked, right? Yeah. And then I could track trends and insights. See, love where this goes.
00:48:19.47 Jon pass
00:48:19.76 Stan Lemon This is playing right into my hobbies. um
00:48:21.39 Jon And you could do it, all of your kids could do it too. And then you could collate the responses. So like if your wife is having a if your wife is having a bad day, then it doesn't
00:48:26.68 Stan Lemon Oh, that's what I need. All of them ganging up on me. Let me know.
00:48:33.16 Jon doesn't ruin the results
00:48:34.76 Stan Lemon We'll call it the jerk-o-meter, right? And they can rate from a scale of zero to super jerk, right? Yeah.
00:48:41.46 Jon we could do uh like pictures of your head we could have angry stan happy stan
00:48:46.30 Stan Lemon if i go thank I can see where this goes. i can see where this goes. This could be more antagonistic than not. No, I, okay. All kidding aside, i think you're onto to something. um I do, I do want to just explain. So when I go on a cruise every night, I record what I have eaten in a note from the dinner menu because ah on a Disney cruise, you sit down, you, it's a, it's a nice dinner. You get a menu with a prefix set of things. Those menus are not very different from boat to boat or cruise to cruise, right? So the, the, um
00:49:20.05 Stan Lemon that allows you to look back on something and say, oh, you know, the Disney fantasy did really good with the red snapper, but ah the Disney magic didn't, right?
00:49:30.54 Stan Lemon Or whatever, or wonder. I haven't been on the magic, sorry.
00:49:32.70 Jon Honestly, that's probably another app idea, Sam.
00:49:35.16 Stan Lemon Could be another app, but yeah, that's super niche, super niche. But the the kicker here is i use an emoji rating system, right? There's a thumbs up. There's a, it's just a hand horizontal.
00:49:47.04 Stan Lemon I call it the meh, right? It's the meh.
00:49:48.98 Jon It's like paper when you're playing Paper Scissors Rock.
00:49:50.68 Stan Lemon Yeah, it's like paper, but it's the meh emoji. And then there's a thumbs down. In extreme situations, you can throw two thumbs up or two thumbs downs, right? But I'm extreme. Like I really limit.
00:50:02.03 Stan Lemon I've done the two thumbs up, like maybe souffle.
00:50:03.30 Jon The souffle.
00:50:04.78 Stan Lemon Yeah, exactly. Right. And thumbs down. um i don't know if I've ever sent anything back. Have I sent anything back? I've definitely asked for a follow-up meal, but don't think i ever said anything back.
00:50:16.66 Stan Lemon So anyhow, that's what John's referring to. And so that's interesting to have Mrs. Lemon basically be the scorekeeper day to day on have I done a good job chilling out after work is what it amounts to.
00:50:29.70 Jon Right. Because ideally, she's going to be more objective than you are.
00:50:34.32 Stan Lemon Ideally. Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:35.95 Jon Like there's a, your brain is probably solving all your work problems throughout the entire night, if it's anything like mine. So, but how does it spill over into your family life and when you aren't actively working?
00:50:49.74 Stan Lemon Right, right. So all those times that i I walk out, I'm like, oh, my job is so frustrating. Mrs.
00:50:54.24 Jon Right.
00:50:54.42 Stan Lemon Leman can just keep track of them and then report back to me.
00:50:56.22 Jon Yep.
00:50:57.54 Stan Lemon So no, it's not a bad idea. I'll have to ita run another buyer and see her because this is what I've been trying to figure out is how do i how do i measure success or failure, right? Because I think this goal is important to me.
00:51:09.10 Stan Lemon Um, and there's a lot I have to do right in order to figure out the structure by which I will clear the, the, um, mental catacombs of my day.
00:51:21.46 Stan Lemon You, you mentioned something that i want to jump back to. So the, the drive, the commute, um, I, I think there's something to this in, there's there's a couple of facets.
00:51:27.45 Jon Yeah.
00:51:32.82 Stan Lemon One, you know, we used to be able to leave work, um, in an office, right? You come home, you didn't take the laptop or whatever, like that was it, you were done. That created a nice boundary. Now, the world that I work in, right? We're running software for the world. So like there are certain situations and scenarios where I'm going to be paged regardless of what time of day it is, right? Or what day of the week it is.
00:51:57.90 Stan Lemon um But there's something, i think there's something that I miss about my first in-office job where I turned the computer off and I went home and that was that.
00:52:10.03 Stan Lemon um At that time, it was novel to work at home. You know, there's pros and cons to each. But that drive in and out definitely gives you the ability to like just shed the day and the frustrations.
00:52:24.28 Jon don't
00:52:24.97 Stan Lemon I've noticed, so once a month I go to a coworking space with some colleagues in town and I've noticed that that day when I come home, I think I'm, got a little more pep in my step, right? And I don't, it could be partially like change of scenery.
00:52:38.04 Stan Lemon could be partially being with people.
00:52:39.86 Jon think it's part of that. Part of it's people. um But yeah.
00:52:43.47 Stan Lemon I also think like I have a deliberate unwind, unload reset for about 20 minutes on the way home,
00:52:50.74 Jon And you are literally alone in your car.
00:52:50.78 Stan Lemon Right.
00:52:52.94 Jon You got to deal with other super drivers. But like, yeah, you can be however you want to be.
00:52:59.09 Stan Lemon This could be a really clutch use of the Vision Pro for me.
00:53:04.26 Jon Yep.
00:53:05.14 Stan Lemon Yeah. ah
00:53:06.06 Jon I think the other thing you have working against you at home is you do lots of things in the space that you're sitting in now.
00:53:13.49 Stan Lemon yeah Which is not going change.
00:53:14.58 Jon um
00:53:15.32 Stan Lemon Like it's, it's not, this is, this is my, I don't have stuff in other rooms of the house.
00:53:16.34 Jon Right.
00:53:19.07 Stan Lemon All my stuff is here, but it does mean that like when I sit down here, there is a propensity to look at the laptop. I am, I am decent at, um, on a day when I know I don't have an evening commitment, actually closing and unplugging it.
00:53:33.18 Stan Lemon So, um, that's like a, that's a thing that I do to, to like mentally reset.
00:53:33.46 Jon Yep.
00:53:38.44 Stan Lemon Now you and I have been talking, especially, especially this last December, cause it's been, this has been just a hell of a ride, um, where the laptop is on and I'm like checking to see what's going on because you know, something, something stressful is, is that a foot?
00:53:53.42 Stan Lemon Um, but you know, that shouldn't be normal. It's been a, it's been a ride here in December, so it shouldn't be normal. Um, That I can, I think I can manage, like I can actually structure around that, but the, I need to like brain detox. And then, you know, I love this idea of having Mrs. Lemon be the scorekeeper.
00:54:15.99 Jon Because then when you're two weeks into January and it's been thumbs downs for two weeks straight, then it's like, okay, now Stan's got to try something different. so
00:54:23.76 Stan Lemon Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, now do, I do need to decide, like should I, should vibe code it, you know, get a little app going, put up on test play.
00:54:30.66 Jon I think you should. i mean, because then it's easier it's easier for you to throw analytics on it, too.
00:54:33.56 Stan Lemon it's
00:54:38.56 Stan Lemon Or have Claude Throw Analytics on it But yeah, yeah.
00:54:40.72 Jon right.
00:54:41.44 Stan Lemon um Okay, Jonathan, i I like this idea. i like what you're the path you're sending me down. So I will, after we're done here today, we' I'll go go have a discussion with Mrs. Lemon and we'll see what we can put into play. what um So just just to come back here real quick, baking bread should be on the list or no?
00:55:04.84 Jon um If it's something that you want to get back into, I think it absolutely should be on the list. I think that you stopped baking bread because your kids stopped eating it. So maybe once a week is too often.
00:55:16.80 Stan Lemon Well, the other thing I could do is figure out how to so like shrink a recipe, right?
00:55:22.17 Jon Right.
00:55:22.76 Stan Lemon Because they they like it they like it the day it comes out of the oven, right?
00:55:25.80 Jon Got it.
00:55:26.22 Stan Lemon When the day after, nobody's interested it. And so if it's a big loaf, it's not going to go. So maybe need to frame this as a treat that is small enough that we let the Hunger Games play out here, and then go from there.
00:55:37.60 Jon Right.
00:55:39.97 Stan Lemon Maybe that's way it.
00:55:40.93 Jon Do that and then maybe plan like a French toast breakfast when it is going to go bad.
00:55:46.42 Stan Lemon Oh, French toast. That sounds good. That sounds good. And then, uh, so writing, do you think I should set the same goal for mileage or should up it?
00:55:57.28 Jon You crushed 500 miles, didn't you? I think you should probably up it because you continue to get in better and better shape at this point.
00:56:04.96 Stan Lemon So, so the alternative is the alternative is I go for, ah speed.
00:56:05.38 Jon Illnesses aside.
00:56:10.85 Stan Lemon I don't know if I care about speed though.
00:56:13.70 Jon I mean, are you trying to get somewhere fast? I think like i thing distance distance probably makes more sense.
00:56:17.57 Stan Lemon Am I trying to get somewhere fast? No.
00:56:21.44 Stan Lemon Okay. So I think I'm i'm trying to see if I could try find this on Strava. I think I hit my, um so I did 611 miles this year and my, no, well, here's here's the interesting thing.
00:56:32.65 Jon Okay, I thought it was more than that.
00:56:36.54 Stan Lemon So my last ride was September first The week before that I did zero miles. The week before that I did a 25 mile ride. Then I had two um ah weeks of zero miles.
00:56:50.69 Stan Lemon So basically at the start of August, I was done with my 500 mile goal with some change to spare. And I kind of petered out. So I think there's something to that in that once I hit my goal, I i lost a little bit of steam. Yeah.
00:57:07.72 Jon Should it be a outdoor ride cadence instead of a mileage?
00:57:12.16 Stan Lemon 10
00:57:12.80 Jon Like you're going to go ride at least 10 miles once a week.
00:57:16.54 Stan Lemon miles once a week or just twice a week.
00:57:18.92 Jon Right.
00:57:19.01 Stan Lemon Maybe just riding twice a week would be be ah a good good goal. So twice
00:57:22.21 Jon And then set whatever dates you'll actually go outside and ride your bike. So...
00:57:25.96 Stan Lemon so my my first, well, you know what's crazy? Last year, I went out and I did 15-mile ride at the end of February because it was crazy.
00:57:38.31 Jon I have a feeling that February is going to be like that again.
00:57:39.62 Stan Lemon it was crazy warmup. Yeah, that'd be great. Um, i think it was February 24th. I went out and I did a 25th, excuse me. I did 15 mile ride cause I was just feeling I actually dragged Henry along on that one too.
00:57:54.37 Stan Lemon So, okay. Two, two, uh, rides a week. I'll do the math on this two, two rides a week and I'll come up with ah a time window cause I got to give myself a little bit of flexibility at the beginning of the season and the end of the season, you know?
00:58:08.11 Jon I forgot about my wine scene. I think current has come out at the end.
00:58:10.30 Stan Lemon I did not. I've i've been surprised. What's that?
00:58:13.57 Jon i think current has come out in the end.
00:58:16.29 Stan Lemon Oh, interesting. I don't, so I was gonna tell you, I don't get any of the alcoholic tastes that I had originally. That bite on the top middle.
00:58:21.28 Jon yeah still Still very apparent tannin, though.
00:58:23.33 Stan Lemon Crazy high tannins.
00:58:24.69 Jon Yeah.
00:58:24.86 Stan Lemon Yeah, it's like, I actually don't think this is a good podcasting wine.
00:58:29.35 Jon Mm-mm. Should come with water, too. But...
00:58:32.83 Stan Lemon Yep, yep. um I would not, this is not what I would have pegged for a Pinot, to be honest with you, this is my Tannin.
00:58:38.75 Jon But it's got a very distinctive Pinot flavor. But like there's so so much layer and texture.
00:58:42.59 Stan Lemon No, you're you're absolutely right.
00:58:47.97 Jon It's a very enjoyable sipping wine.
00:58:51.93 Stan Lemon Yeah, you don't you wouldn't want to pound this one.
00:58:51.100 Jon Or apparently with them apparently food pairing. so
00:58:56.29 Stan Lemon Yeah, you you're right. It's definitely the the funkiness is now more in the nose. I was getting it more in the mouth before. um the other thing, too, is I get like a... I'm still not getting a bunch of current.
00:59:07.01 Jon Interesting.
00:59:07.45 Stan Lemon um But my nose is a little shot this week. So... I do get like a, some of that smokiness is not as prevalent as it was at the start of the wine an hour ago.
00:59:17.98 Jon But it's still present. Yeah.
00:59:19.69 Stan Lemon it's It's more subtle. It's less some less like ah burned leaves.
00:59:25.75 Jon Right.
00:59:27.17 Stan Lemon Maybe a little bit of a chocolatey note on the sides of the tongue in the back. Cocoa, not chocolate, cocoa.
00:59:36.15 Jon Could be cocoa. Could be cinnamon.
00:59:40.43 Stan Lemon Ah, there you go. That's what it is. I think that's, think that's, I think that's better. Yeah. Sediment like a baking spice. Um, yeah. All right, Jonathan, have I satisfied your goals discussion?
00:59:51.90 Jon I think that we're good to go on goals for 2026. I
00:59:56.42 Stan Lemon All right. So now just have to figure out what we're going to talk about in 2026.
01:00:00.86 Jon i mean, there's always milkshakes.
01:00:02.80 Stan Lemon As always milkshakes and more AI.
01:00:04.12 Jon Well,
01:00:04.39 Stan Lemon We actually, did we go a whole episode without any AI talk until now?
01:00:08.32 Jon until now. Well, we talked about vibe coding, so I guess that counts.
01:00:11.74 Stan Lemon Oh, that counts?
01:00:12.92 Jon we We went back and we talked about...
01:00:13.08 Stan Lemon all right.
01:00:14.89 Jon ah Ancient technology.
01:00:18.20 Stan Lemon There you go. any Any reports from our twisty friends?
01:00:23.64 Jon um So Emily, the one who wrote the emails, is out until after Christmas, so I have not gotten her thoughts. Rebecca did listen today, liked some things like you actually admitting that French silk is pie, and then there were a bunch of things that they didn't like. But I would probably expect another email comes in at some point.
01:00:46.20 Stan Lemon Okay. That'd be delightful. Rebecca, i please send your thoughts in podcast at twistoflemonpod.com. We read all of your emails and we will talk about all of your emails on the podcast, which tells you exactly how many emails we've gotten, right? Well, we've gotten one. It's been fantastic. We'd love to make it fantastic again.
01:01:05.65 Jon Right.
01:01:05.72 Stan Lemon So, right, Jonathan, I think that is yeah until next time, my friend, Merry Christmas.
01:01:07.61 Jon All right. Until next time.
01:01:11.38 Jon Merry Christmas.